[POV: Asha Okonkwo – Command Bridge, INS Vikrant]

The storm outside hadn’t yet touched the deck of the INS Vikrant, but Asha could feel it in her bones. A tremor in the magic of the sea, a pressure building under her feet. The Ice Worms were on the move again.

Inside the carrier’s CIC, the hum of energy, war, and tension mingled in the recycled air. Satellite feeds streamed through. Naval formations were adjusting. Alerts blinked on every interface. Five new worm signatures. Larger than anything before.

And still no word from Vaelin Thorne.

“Project tactical overlays,” she ordered, arms folded behind her back.

As the glowing maps flared to life, Asha felt the eyes of the world’s best upon her—Rear Admiral Park, General Lemaire, Admiral Bahl—all deferring to the youngest of them, the African commander elevated by merit, success, and necessity.

“This time, we strike preemptively,” she said. “We know Mary’s anchor points—offshore moonstone beacons protected by worm sigils. Solomon proved they can be disrupted.”

She turned to her operations chief. “Begin precision strike planning. I want every known beacon hit simultaneously.”

“What about the five new worms?” Park asked.

Asha’s fingers curled against the command table.

“We slow them. Distract them. If necessary, bait them toward Dyana’s faction.”

Bahl arched a brow. “You want to provoke the elven civil war?”

“I want to survive it.”

[POV: Solomon Kane – Eastern Tanzanian Coastline]

Solomon crouched beside the shattered shell of a Tanzanian observation tower. Its antenna twisted toward the sea like a broken finger. Below him, troops scurried—UN, AU, Indian—all rearming, reloading, refueling.

His armor was scratched. His rifle scorched. The resonance disruptor pack on his back hummed faintly.

A new mission had arrived: infiltration of one of Mary’s anchor beacons. His third one, if he made it.

The sea looked calm, but he saw the ripples. The way water parted unnaturally. Something massive was below.

“Ice Worm patrols,” Jamie Lancaster’s voice crackled through his earpiece. “That beacon is near a deep ocean trench. Careful.”

He didn’t reply. Just lowered his goggles and slid down the hill.

The terrain was ruined. Frozen craters. Crushed bunkers. And something else—glowing roots of magic growing like fungal tendrils from underground. Traces of Mary’s spread.

Solomon gritted his teeth.

“She’s trying to take the land too,” he muttered.

He activated the disruptor.

If the beacon was heart and worm was body—he was the dagger.

[POV: Mary – Moonlit Shrine, Offshore Command Vessel]

Pain was becoming familiar.

Mary stood barefoot on the silver-rimmed deck, her eyes closed as wind and lunar resonance surged through her. Her Moonlight Core still pulsed with divine energy, but the feedback from the severed beacons was becoming violent.

“They’ve severed another link,” one of her priestesses said, trembling. “Beacon twelve. The resonance was… counter-harmonized.”

Mary’s silver eyes opened slowly.

“Solomon again?”

The priestess nodded.

Mary walked to the central basin, her long robes brushing the ancient runes etched in moonsteel. She could still feel the Ice Worms, loyal to her song, still hear their movements beneath the waves.

But control was slipping.

“If they take more of the sigils, we lose coordinated assault capacity,” the priestess warned. “The worms will scatter.”

“No,” Mary said. “They’ll rage. They’ll attack anything.”

She traced a spiral above the basin.

“Then let them. We unleash the Rite of Three.”

The priestess gasped. “But… that ritual—”

“I will sacrifice what I must. Bind the Moonlight Core to me completely. If I cannot command the storm…”

She looked toward the burning coastline of Tanzania.

“Then I will become it.”

[POV: Jamie Lancaster – Resonance Lab, UN Forward Science Vessel “Gaia’s Eye”]

The lab was in chaos.

Jamie Lancaster’s team worked around the clock, scraping data from each shattered beacon Solomon destroyed. Holograms flickered. Magical containment tanks hissed. And in the center, the stabilized resonance core from the second beacon pulsed like a heartbeat.

“Her resonance is syncing with the Core faster than we expected,” Jamie said, pointing at the readings. “She's not just using it as a focus—she’s merging with it.”

Her assistant, Dr. Rajan, tapped furiously. “If she completes the Rite of Three, the Core becomes a living part of her magic signature. We can’t just disrupt it. We’d have to kill her.”

Jamie’s jaw tightened.

“And what about the five new worms?”

“Same signal line,” Rajan said. “But… something else too. There’s a second harmonic. Deeper. Older.”

Jamie blinked. “Dyana.”

“No. Not quite. This one’s… not elven.”

Jamie stood upright, a chill crawling down her spine.

“You mean something… beyond?”

Rajan nodded.

“We’re not just fighting elves and ice worms anymore. Something else woke up in that deep trench.”

[POV: Dyana – Southern Sea Fortress]

Dyana stood atop a spire of black ice, gazing at the distant sea. The magical horizon shimmered with tension. Her hands glowed with barely restrained power.

Mary had gone too far.

The worms were never meant to be tools. They were chaos. Destruction incarnate. But Mary had turned them into puppets of divine vengeance.

And now the humans had responded with fire and steel. Worse, Asha Okonkwo, the enemy she looked down on but was frighteningly competent had gained full strategic command of the region—and she was using it effectively.

Dyana hated her enemies less than she hated being outmaneuvered.

“Lady Dyana,” her noble lieutenant whispered. “The worms near the Dar es Salaam front are breaking formation. Mary’s link is weakening.”

“Then strike,” Dyana commanded. “Use the Icewind Archers. Drive them into her claimed waters. Let her creations turn on her.”

The noble hesitated. “And if they strike at us too?”

“Then we remind the world that we were the first to conquer storms.”

[POV: Asha – INS Vikrant, Commanding the Storm]

“Solomon just confirmed destruction of another beacon,” the comms officer reported. “Three left.”

“Status of the five new worms?” Asha asked.

“Converging. Fast. But they’re… fighting each other.”

Asha blinked.

“Mary’s losing control.”

Rear Admiral Park stepped beside her.

“This is the moment, Commander. We push.”

Asha looked out to sea. The storm was swirling. The clouds above formed a spiral around something unseen. The Moonlit Shrine pulsed with unnatural moonlight.

Her voice, calm and clear, echoed across the command deck.

“All vessels: advance on the shrine. Aerial squadrons, suppress the sigils. Mech divisions, hold the beachheads. Let’s remind these monsters who the ocean belongs to.”

Epilogue – Global Command Update

* Mary’s Link Severed: Three beacons down, three remaining. Moonlight Core nearing full merger with her.

* Solomon Kane: Targeted fourth beacon. Mission ongoing. Last seen moving into the volcanic trench region.

* Dyana’s Forces: Engaged in partial aggression against Mary's faction. Ice Worm packs entering infighting patterns.

* Asha Okonkwo: Now commanding full multinational force across the Indian Ocean front. Launching final phase assault on Mary’s offshore shrine.

* Unknown Signal: Detected beneath the trench. Origin: non-elven. Non-human. Unconfirmed anomaly.

The tide was shifting.

But what loomed beneath the waves— Was something no one had prepared for.